Collared pratincole (Glareola pratincola)

[Juan Aragonés]

Last week I went to visit one of my favourite birding spots in the Marismas del Odiel (South of Spain) and the place is full of life. This year the mixed colony of pratincoles and litle terns is biggest than in previous years and we had a lot of fun photographing in the surrounding of the colony. Flights with the 500VR are a real joy, much, much better than with the 300VR+1,4XTC. I handholded the lens all along the day and I returned home with a lot of keepers so I am really happy with the lens performance (keep ready for more pratincole images in the next days). This is one of the flights from that day. It is a crop but this image is about 70% of the original file. This guys fly really fast and their flight pattern is not very predictable... in other words, they are really fun to photograph ;)
This image is overexposed about two stop (I went up to ISO640 to get decent SS) because I have found that under hars light conditions, overexposed images are much better for the processing job because it is easier to get details in the shadows withou rising the noise.

By the way, I love this species, the beautifull face of the pratincole reminds to me the face of a princess with carmine painted lips. Their spanish name is "canastera" meaning (basketer)

As always, your coments and critics are really apreciated :)

Nikon D300, AFS Nikkor 500VR handheld ISO640 1/1250s f7,1

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I Iike the deep blue,pose and the eye contact!!!

[Ramon M. Casares]

Lovely image Juan, great pose, colors, detail, sharpness and species, light was a tad harsh but you handeled well, whites in the tail seem hot in my monitor, and I would suggest to crop a bit from the left to de-center the bird. Big congratulations!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool capture. I like the pose and eye contact. I agree regarding toning down the whites and would selectively sharpen the head more. Maybe a little bit less saturation of the sky?

[Stu Bowie]

Sounds like you had fun Juan. I like the angle of flight, together with the position of the wings. I like the detail and colours on the pratincole, especially his collar. Comp wise, as he is flying upwards, I would take a bot off the bottom, and as Ramon has stated, move him back to the left. Still, well captured.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful Image Juan, lovely bird, the details and the slightly open beak makes the pose interesting.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Tough light but done well. Just need to move bird from frame center. Re-crop????

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hola Juan!

Great looking bird. Love the eye contact here as well as the wings up. I also believe that a less saturated sky would make this one even better. jc

[Doug Brown]

You did well with the harsh light Juan. Wing position and eye contact are superb. The whites look cooked. I would desaturate the sky some and also selectively sharpen the head. I would also crop a little off the left.

[Dave Barnes]

Very well captured Juan, I have tried to capture a pratincole in flight from a small boat without much success, they are are fast and unpredictable as you say.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Superb Juan! All been said, just adding my well captured!

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Juan, I love this species too as this is a shorebird :)
Very nice image. Good to see how nicely the 500VR working again.
Underwing looks a bit pale - lack of contrast I guess. Otherwise lovely.

Szimi

[Kobus Tollig]

Nits covered. Well done on this

[Juan Aragonés]

Thanks a lot for the comments. The whites in this species and under harsh light conditions are an exposure nightmare so I will tone down the whites a bit, desaturate the sky, add a litle more croping and another round of USM to the head ;-)
I am going to post a new version of this file in my blog and several more flights from the same day.
Thanks again :-)